My youngest daughter continues to astound me with her maturity and resolve; children do indeed sometimes deal with grief with more maturity, more grace, more dignity than adults! And there I am again talking about those virtues, grace and dignity, virtues that came naturally to my beautiful Sue, virtues that my amazing daughter demonstrates in ever growing and evolving ways.
The obvious sign of my tears is greeted by, " You alright dad, we'll be OK?".... The staying away, the going places, the sleepovers with friends, they are always followed by, "I wanted to come home dad, to be with you, to check you are coping!" "I've made you an AMMF Loom bracelet."
"THE GIFT OF HEALTH IS KEEPING ME ALIVE." c
My wife wrote notes and messages in capitals during her battle where amazingly she gave thanks for everything she had. She extolled the positives and embraced the beauty of Lily, Louise, Mandy and all her friends and family despite the appalling inevitability of her wicked disease. She even found time to say how amazing I was? How much I cared for her, loved her and nurtured her in those final, agonising weeks. But although I read these words back again and again with some degree of introspection I am, by my very nature, overcome more by my emotional responses than my logical ones. It might well be shattering, the words that Sue appears to utter from beyond the grave unbelievably heartbreaking, but the words themselves, their honesty, truth, even brutalness offer the one thing that is a glimpse of light amongst the darkness of our despair and grief and that is hope! Hope for Louise to continue to be successful in her job, to enjoy her life and relationships, hope for Lily to continue to grow as a mature, amazing person full of success, ideas and brilliance. And hope for me maybe that in some small way I can act and conduct myself in a manner that would make Sue proud and grateful, content and happy in a place now where she desperately misses her daughters and friends, family and life.
"I AM BLESSED TO HAVE THE MOST AMAZING DAUGHTERS." c
There's a narrative here, a story, it has a natural beginning that involves a sudden, un-explained pain, an exposition of people, hospitals, treatments, equipment and places. The middle is terrible! It's someone at the end of life in this world, showing courage and beauty amidst such pain, shattering tragedy and then ultimately death. And then the end. But no end, life continues, the narrative and our journey continues, to live our life, to remember our beautiful mother, wife, sister and friend, to make sure we honour her amazingness and to try to get a little bit close, just a little bit to who she was and who she touched by our actions and deeds. Amazing and inspiring, touch-felt, human and courageous. Sparkling! "Shine on like a diamond!"
"I AM SO GRATEFUL TO BE SPENDING MORE TIME REGULARLY WITH MIKE." c
So hope, a desire or expectation for something to happen, a wish but also importantly an assumption of finding my way, our way beyond the grief and into the next stage of our narrative, because it's ours now, Louise's, Lily's and mine. Ours! Always with Sue in our mind, but ours and our family and friends!
"I AM SO GRATEFUL MY FRIENDS HAVE SHOWN SUCH LOVE AND COMPASSION TOWARDS ME AT THIS TIME." c
Shine on friends.......
"THANK-YOU, THANK-YOU, THANK-YOU, FOR THE PERFECT RESOLUTION." c
c- copyright Susan Frances Sheppard
Straight afterwards , I mean even when the hospital nurses and doctors are shocked, or more fearful actually of imparting the news of a loved one's death it's so difficult to understand and appreciate that what was here moments, seconds ago is now gone forever. Like this line drawn in the sand, or chalk hurriedly scrawled down a board, we're all on this side now still the same, breathing! But they're that side, dead, and not! How is this? Not death so much although that's bad enough, but the line more, the time, seconds between here and gone, moments defining 'with us or not'. I think about this, about the time it takes for love, life, presence to go and what is left? Our life, but not their's. Perhaps we should be thankful therefore. To whom I don't know, god? More about him later.
Grief and death make you think a lot, I've always been a thinker, it's my job, it's who I am, I've always questioned and thought this way and that, what if ? Could it be done differently? I encourage my students to do the same. Now I'm doing it more than ever.
If a person is old and dies quietly and peacefully in their sleep in the full knowledge of a life lived it is sad. If someone goes before their time it is incomprehensibly tragic, especially when they were so full of life, that's it full of life, if there is a difference, that it is. Gone before they should because of a life still to be lived. That is my grief at the moment. Grief, so many things, but ultimately private, personal and alone. Lou, Lily, me, alone with it ourselves!
Sue is not at rest, she didn't wan't to go, none of us wanted her to go, so that euphemism doesn't apply here. To the elderly who were in pain maybe, to those who state they can't go on, I understand. But Suze was a mover, circulating, orbiting never stopping, she didn't want to rest, that was the last thing on her mind. And I know she is missing her Louise and Lily like you wouldn't know, I think and hope she misses me? So all four of us are actually grieving for one another, us here, Suze somewhere else.
And so to god, heaven, wherever she might be looking down at us or living on within us and as part of us. I don't really know about any of these if I'm honest. Comfort comes in peoples' kindness here and now not making things up in our imagination I think. I can see her in Lily though, and in the way Louise laughs and can only do what I know she would want me to do. That I do know for sure. Which is, not to dwell, or be maudlin, self pitying, succumbing, feeling sorry for myself, but in helping my daughters so they can live their life, as she did, to the full and without care to conforming or following what might be expected in some rule book. And to touch people as she did. To touch so many, many people with just who she was and what she possessed. Grace, knowledge, style and love. We love you babes!
It never goes away and nor do I expect it to anytime soon if ever. It sometimes lurks in the background and at other times it completely envelops you rendering you silent and still, battling certain thoughts and images or just overcome with remembering. It can occasionally be hopeful. Reading posts on depression one might believe this is what I describe, depression itself is terrible, an awful thing that needs much more awareness, discussion and empathy.
But so does what I describe, and perhaps they are similar, I am not sure, I am not a clinician in mental health. I am a person, a father but also now a widower. For the feeling or state I describe is grief. I lost my beautiful wife on Wednesday 09th April, tragically and suddenly. And this is where these words begin.
My beautiful wife was taken so suddenly and viscously on the 09th April 2014 from a little known cancer that originated in the liver bile ducts, cholongiocarcinoma. The speed of her departure in fact the acceleration from diagnosis to death has not only left me breathless but disbelieving that she won't just walk back in through the door saying it had all been a big test, an elaborate hoax concocted to analyse something and now she's back she has a few things to say. But I know this won't happen, this isn't to be.
My grief seems to change from quietness and staring out of numerous windows for seconds, minutes on end in silence and stillness, just remembering to feeling a lump in my throat and an ache in an empty heart that induces tears. Sometimes it is forgetting totally and suddenly realising this is not a dream (guilt) to thinking of good times, of fun, love and laughter to dark times and illness, sickness and desperation. I get help , I get advice and words of comfort. I like words, I like kindness even more. Strangely I like loneliness too, or quiet, silence and nothing for a time.
And the purpose of this, the justification for this expression of grief and my own words. To help my daughters Lily and Louise. To help them come to terms with things in their own way. To be strong for them. And for other reasons too.
- to share my grief with the grief of dear friends to help one another through this
- to keep the spirit, memory and joy of life Suze had alive
- to raise awareness and money for A.M.M.F the U.K's only specialist cholongiocarcinoma charity
I'm Dying to Know the answers to some questions that will never be answered. So much now left unsaid, much confusion and emptiness.
Helping Lily, helping Lou, helping friends, helping me to survive grief.
